Thread (9 messages) 9 messages, 3 authors, 2025-10-21

Re: [PATCH] x86/bpf: use bpf_capable() instead of capable(CAP_SYS_ADMIN)

From: "Serge E. Hallyn" <serge@hallyn.com>
Date: 2025-08-07 01:18:56
Also in: bpf, selinux

On Wed, Aug 06, 2025 at 04:31:05PM +0200, Ondrej Mosnacek wrote:
Don't check against the overloaded CAP_SYS_ADMINin do_jit(), but instead
use bpf_capable(), which checks against the more granular CAP_BPF first.
Going straight to CAP_SYS_ADMIN may cause unnecessary audit log spam
under SELinux, as privileged domains using BPF would usually only be
allowed CAP_BPF and not CAP_SYS_ADMIN.

Link: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2369326
Fixes: d4e89d212d40 ("x86/bpf: Call branch history clearing sequence on exit")
Signed-off-by: Ondrej Mosnacek <omosnace@redhat.com>
So this seems correct, *provided* that we consider it within the purview of
CAP_BPF to be able to avoid clearing the branch history buffer.

I suspect that's the case, but it might warrant discussion.

Reviewed-by: Serge Hallyn <serge@hallyn.com>
quoted hunk ↗ jump to hunk
---
 arch/x86/net/bpf_jit_comp.c | 3 +--
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/arch/x86/net/bpf_jit_comp.c b/arch/x86/net/bpf_jit_comp.c
index 15672cb926fc1..2a825e5745ca1 100644
--- a/arch/x86/net/bpf_jit_comp.c
+++ b/arch/x86/net/bpf_jit_comp.c
@@ -2591,8 +2591,7 @@ emit_jmp:
 			seen_exit = true;
 			/* Update cleanup_addr */
 			ctx->cleanup_addr = proglen;
-			if (bpf_prog_was_classic(bpf_prog) &&
-			    !capable(CAP_SYS_ADMIN)) {
+			if (bpf_prog_was_classic(bpf_prog) && !bpf_capable()) {
 				u8 *ip = image + addrs[i - 1];
 
 				if (emit_spectre_bhb_barrier(&prog, ip, bpf_prog))
-- 
2.50.1
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